Friday Family Fun

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Here is an excerpt from my journal after I visited my friend Dina's house for dinner one Friday night, enjoy! This may be the most interesting one (genuine), so pay attention.

Friday 15/06/2012

Got a phone call from someone called Dina who asked if I wanted to go for dinner so I agreed. I thought it would be a lot of students going out for a meal which would have been fun but actually it was so much better than I thought it would be! So Dina is lovely and she picked me up and took me on a wee drive around the city before heading back to her house. I had too much food but it was beautiful Arabic sweets and tea (Arabic tea is delish) and Arabic coffee (not so much) to get rid of the sweet taste. Before tea I had some savoury pastries, then some sweet pastry and then some coffee and caramel cake. For tea I had something beginning with F which was lovely, it was chickpeas and aubergine and fried potato bits and some salad with apple and pomegranate in it. Also had some rice with yoghurt which is seemingly normal to have. Then came dessert, which was a sweet pudding beginning with S sucra or something maybe? It was also really nice and had walnuts on the top. Deena has a massive family, and there were lots of kids running around and all the cousins were there, a bit like my big fat greek wedding in a way! It was such a nice night and we watched Arab’s Got Talent and then she dropped me off. I learned a lot about Arabic culture, the reason their names is so long is because they include their fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers and great-great grandfathers names between their first name and their family name. Also that Dina is divorced and that is very common here, 50%!o(MISSING)f marriages. Even though the marriages are arranged here, so that was a shock to me.

And it is unusual for a 21 year old girl not to be married but for a man it is too young, because weddings cost 50000 to 100000 pounds apparently so the man has to save up!!

Learned a few Arabic words, Inshallah, Manshallah (sp?), Yani, Shukran. (God willing, God blessed it kind of, it means, thank you). I am going to get henna tattoos done with Deena I think (they only last a week, Mum) and I hope to see lots more of her too. I think we will, because also she is coming to London with her mum when her mum gets treatment for her leg and I have asked her to come to Scotland and visit so I think she will. Although I can’t take her on a night out, but a ceilidh would be good.

Tomorrow I am meeting some more students and we are doing a city tour, mall visits and Souq Waqif which I am BUZZING for because I really want to go to the Souq!!

Julie

XOXO

P.S Abso gagging for a bev

(This last part was a joke, I think)

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